DALLAS - Violent crime dropped in the U.S. in 2008. How reducing salt intake would save health costs. Did the Lehman Bros. collapse trigger economic turmoil? Michelle Obama to travel in support of Chicago's Olympic 2016 bid.

The front page of the New York Times?

No, just stories that got Frank Trigg thinking, reposted via his Facebook or Twitter pages.

The 37-year-old welterweight is no ordinary fighter. Thanks to social networking, he is a tsunami of information.

"I try and keep myself busy," Trigg explained. "I read a lot, so in my down time I'm reading something whether it's simple news sources, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times or USA Today, I'm trying to catch up on the world news.

"But I'm also trying to figure out what's going on in America as far as like what's happening with our health-care system and what's going to go on with the war front over in Iraq and Afghanistan and things like that. I want to kind stay up to date as much as possible. Plus it keeps your mind off the nervousness of a fight coming up, makes things a lot easier to kind of pay attention to."

On Saturday, Trigg returns to the UFC after a four-year absence to take on Josh Koscheck at UFC 103 at the American Airlines Center (available on pay-per-view). It's his first UFC outing since a loss to Canadian Georges St. Pierre at UFC 54 in August 2005,

The stream of tweets and Facebook entries has slowed somewhat as Trigg prepares for his comeback. And for good reason.

While Trigg (19-6 including 2-3 in the UFC) has won his last four fights outside the UFC, Koscheck (14-4, including 10-4 in the UFC) is a big ask. He is six years younger than Trigg and has been fighting better opposition.

"Frank wants to try to get back into the limelight and try to get eventually a title shot and he's got to come through Josh Koscheck to do that," Koscheck, a former NCAA wrestling champion, said in an interview. "I'm going to put a stamp on all his hopes and dreams right from the get-go that `Hey, this ain't going to be no easy road back to the title."'

Koscheck was blunter in the "Countdown to UFC 103" televised preview, citing Trigg's two losses to former champion Matt Hughes in declaring Trigg was famous for giving up his back and getting choked out.

The bookies don't expect much from Trigg either, making Koscheck a 5-1 favourite.

Trigg's return is welcome, if only for the entertaining baggage he brings with him.

He wrestled at Oklahoma State, where he majored in public affairs and administration, and was a finalist at the 2000 Olympic trials. In addition to the UFC, he also fought in Pride and served on its TV commentary team in the U.S.

In 2005, Trigg appeared as a contestant on the VH1 reality television program "Kept," trying to win the affections of former supermodel Jerry Hall.

He developed his own clothing line, Triggonomics, and co-owns a gym in El Segundo, Calif.

Trigg may have been out of the MMA big leagues recently, but he was never far out of the limelight.

"I'm a pretty good self-marketer," he acknowledged. "I took a lesson from Muhammad Ali and just kind of spent that time where you have to learn how to self-market. Because no matter what anybody says or anybody does, they're not going to put the money and value behind you that you can put behind yourself.

"So I spend a lot of time on the social networks, whether it's MySpace, Facebook or Twitter and I do try to keep myself out there as much as possible, keep the name out there whether it's via commentating or little tweets every day or putting something out there, I just try to keep myself viable. And that's really why people still know who I am."

Trigg is a refreshing breath of air when it comes to interviews. He freely admits that his life was falling apart around the second Hughes (UFC 52) and GSP fights.

"I'd lost my trainer, lost my training camp, lost my way -- was in the process of moving, was going through a divorce, was losing my daughter," he recalled. "Losing a whole bunch of things that were going on all at once.

"During that St. Pierre fight (leadup), I was travelling to Oklahoma to go see my daughter for three days before I couldn't see her again for a year and a half. It was a real tumultuous time. At that time I was more concerned with other things than I was concerned with fighting.

"I needed a paycheque," he added. "I needed to get paid to fight, I had bills to pay and that was what all my main focus was."

Trigg had been convinced he would win the welterweight belt, saying the second loss to Hughes "kind of broke me a little bit mentally."

"I didn't really even want to be in the game at all. And that's unfair to St. Pierre for as great a fighter as he is now, as good as he's become, he doesn't deserve to have a fight like that on his record where he fought a guy that was like 30 per cent of what he should have been. That was just stupid on my part and disrespectful to him, disrespectful to the fight, disrespectful to the UFC for me to show up like that. I should not have done anything like that at all. I should have been out there trying to fight and just didn't make it happen."

But Trigg will be forever linked to Hughes, who ended their first fight at UFC 45 via a remarkable standing rear naked choke.

The second Hughes clash has been immortalized in the montage video shown to the crowd at every UFC event just before the pay-per-view portion of the card airs. After taking a knee to the groin that the referee missed, Hughes found himself on the ground and fighting off a Trigg choke. But he regained his composure and launched a memorable slam -- picking Trigg up and draping him off his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, before walking the length of the cage and dumping him on the canvas.

Hughes then took his time administering punishment before choking out his dazed opponent.

"I would never have a chance to be in the cage with this person again, and I needed him to hear the things my fists wanted to say to his face," Hughes wrote in his 2008 autobiography "Made in America."

"I hit him and hit him and hit him again."

Trigg had got under Hughes' skin prior to their fights, boasting he had "a better family, a better upbringing" than Hughes.

"I want to hurt him for the sole purpose of shutting him up," Hughes said at the time.

Trigg, who retired briefly in 2006 after a loss to Carlos Condit, is back in the same organization as Hughes, but has no interested in fighting him again.

"He's a guy that I lost to twice and that's just what it is. He's a piece of my fight history and that's all he is. There's nothing else to it," said Trigg, who barely knew Hughes and made up the trash-talk.

Like Trigg, Koscheck -- the bad guy on Season 1 of "The Ultimate Fighter" -- is used to being the villain of the piece.

"He comes to fight and he takes a good game. He talks shit and I like that," Trigg said. "I like to be motivated."

Trigg is 7-2 since leaving the UFC, although he freely admits the calibre of competition has been lesser. Now training in Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, he remains a name fighter and the UFC needs those given the number of shows it is mounting these days.

Married with three kids -- one-year-old son Stone, eight-year-old daughter Kiara, and 16-year-old son Frankie -- Trigg is ready for his second go-round in the UFC. He is not sure which fighter will be booed more at Friday's weigh-in or Saturday's fight. Koscheck isn't either.

"I don't know, we'll see," Koscheck said. "I honestly couldn't tell you who's going to be the villain in this one."

Let's give Trigg the last word.

"Because of how fast the sport has grown in the last five years and with my absence from the UFC, I think more people are going to boo Koscheck," he said. "Just because they know him better, they know him more."

Trigg may be surprised. He is hard to forget.